Getty John Harbaugh during a game with the Ravens.
The Baltimore Ravens lost the ability to play on Thanksgiving Day due to a COVID-19 outbreak within their team, and as a result of this, the team conducted an investigation and have revealed discipline.
Wednesday evening, the Ravens revealed that they had disciplined an unnamed staff member for conduct surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak that has impacted multiple players and staff members this week. While the staff member was not identified, it’s clear that some serious rules were broken for this to be revealed in the first place.
Statement from the Baltimore Ravens.
It’s hard to say which protocol was broken in this case, but the NFL has unveiled tons of rules and regulations to help curb COVID-19 in their facilities. They’ve gone so far as to have sensors that tell when players are too close and do heavy contact tracing. Obviously, it wouldn’t be hard to figure out when and where a protocol was broken in order to figure out why it was the case. Perhaps it could have been something with this, or it could have been something outside the building which came up.
Either way, it’s very clear the Ravens are not messing around with their investigation and response to what has played out over the past week or more. However this happened, Baltimore lost a primetime Thanksgiving Day game as a result while seeing plenty of folks sickened. It wasn’t a great look for the franchise which is already in desperate late season position given their struggles on the field over the last few weeks.
Ravens’ Dramatic COVID-19 Outbreak
After playing and losing a hard fought game to the Tennessee Titans, the Ravens shut down their facility abruptly due to multiple folks testing positive for COVID-19 within the team. While it wasn’t known how many official positives there were or who specifically any of the players were at the time, reports later surfaced a few of the players dealing with COVID-19 were running backs J.K. Dobbins and Mark Ingram. More positives came for the Ravens late Tuesday, and with that news, it was clear that the teams probably would be able to play with such a quick turnaround this week. With this news, it’s clear that is not going to be the case.
Ravens COVID-19 Response
Early on this season, Baltimore had done a great job as it related to COVID-19. The team avoided serious outbreaks much of the first half of the season and during training camp, but recently had a small situation when Marlon Humphrey tested positive. That situation was handled well by the team, but this case happened shortly after. Clearly, for discipline to be revealed, there’s a good reason that so many players and members of the organization have been impacted.
The specific nature of this situation may not be revealed or may be kept under wraps for a while, but the team has at the very least pinpointed the staff member and made a move to discipline them.
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